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In the presence of the lord

Bringing the devotee and the deity together are the manorath paintings from Nathdwara, the great centre of pilgrimage

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BN Goswamy

In devotional practices followed at Nathdwara], manoratha or ‘heart-felt desire’ is associated with the aspiration of giving and receiving from God during darshan, darshan being that occasion when a worshipper has the opportunity of seeing and being seen by the divinity while visiting a temple....These images, illustrating worshippers in the presence of Shrinathji, had a deep emotional significance for them because they embodied both the corporeal pilgrimage to Nathdwara and the inner devotional experience.— Isabella Nordi

Across time, one knows, devotees have nursed an innermost desire to be in close proximity to their ishta, to reach out to — and touch as it were — Him or Her to whom their devotion is directed. Whether this happens, or has ever happened, in real life is hard to know, but one sees this happening so many times in the world of art. The evidence of paintings in this regard is rich and incontrovertible: ever so often, we see a ruler standing with folded hands in front of his deity — not a sculpted or painted image of the deity, but the deity in person — seeking blessings or receiving them. Some wonderful paintings have come down: a Maharana of Mewar in the presence of Eklingji; a Wodeyar ruler of Mysore bowing before Krishna; a prince of Mankot gazing at Vishnu and his divine consort; a sovereign of Mandi kneeling before Shiva. There is something quite moving about these images even if these were commissioned by the patron, inspired as he might have been by a sudden urge to enter a higher realm, or by an auspicious dream, perhaps.

Portrait study of Maganlal, Priest of Surat. ca. 1925

Manorath with devotee family. By Ambalal Khemraj; ca. 1920. Anil Relia Collection

In many ways, the manorath paintings from Nathdwara of which we speak belong to this very category of art which brings the devotee and deity together. Generally speaking, one associates with Nathdwara — that great centre of pilgrimage, not far from Udaipur, where an image of young Krishna is installed and worshipped as Shrinathji — with pichhwais, those large painted textiles that are meant to form, as the word indicates, a backdrop for the image of Krishna. Some extraordinary pichhwais are known to have been painted by devoted groups of artists in the 18th and 19th centuries, showing, in the centre, not only the image of Krishna in the miraculous act of holding aloft the mount Govardhana to save his kinsmen from the wrath of rain-god Indra, but also a bewildering range of rituals, festivals, gatherings, and wondrous deeds. Figures associated with Krishna — his parents, playmates and maidens who doted upon him — fill spaces, as do priests and attendants and, on occasion, chosen devotees. These gloriously coloured and designed hangings, steeped sometimes in deep feeling, also had their counterparts in paintings on paper — superb examples have survived — which featured not only Krishna as Shrinathji, but in his other manifestations like Navnitapriya, Dwarkadheesh, Gokulnath, Mathuresh, among others. The production of these in the bylanes of Nathdwara, where painter after painter kept poring over sheets of paper pasted on wooden tablets, turned, over time, into a whole, buzzing industry.

Within these two categories it is possible to see incorporated a sub-category perhaps: manorath paintings. In their essence, they are not different from pichhwais and paintings on paper, but one can regard them as a sub-category because their orientation, their focus, is somewhat different. Like others, they too celebrate Krishna, but they also celebrate, or at least record, at the same time a temporal event: a large donation, a performed pilgrimage, a specially designed observance. When the distinguished tilakayat — ruling chief so to speak of the Nathdwara establishment — Goverdhanlal-ji gets a pichhwai specially painted to commemorate his having successfully brought five different icons of the sect together at Nathdwara for an occasion; or when the Maharana of Mewar, likewise, gets a painting made to record his visit to the great shrine for performing a puja, the works are recording the fulfilment of a manorath.

Manorath with devotee family. By Ambalal Khemraj; ca. 1920. Anil Relia Collection

However, the term as it is being increasingly used now, refers to ‘popular’ paintings commissioned by sub-royal or sub-prelate patrons for recording their presence, and that of their kinsmen, at Nathdwara in homage to their ishta: Krishna as installed there. The patron might be a rich Seth, a trader, a moneylender, a landlord — there were significant numbers of them in Rajasthan and Gujarat — and one finds them standing there, next to, or facing, a pichhwai with the image of Krishna, hands reverently folded, devotion writ large on eager faces. Of this kind, more and more paintings began to be made from the early years of the 20th century with yet another significant change coming in. Even though there were many painters around who were gifted portraitists, the painted faces of the patron/devotees began — now that photography had established itself in India and entered nearly every mind — to be replaced by faces cut out, excerpted, from hastily taken photographs showing frontal views. The devotees can be seen flanking the deity but, at times, looking out of the work at us, or one another, rather than the object of their adoration. This is the time that one starts reading about ‘mixed-media’ paintings, ‘cut-and-pasted gelatin silver prints and opaque watercolours’ occupying the same spaces, and nearly every work inscribed with the name/signature of the person/s who painted it. Signs of our times? The triumph of commerce?

Not every image works but there is fascination in all this. There are routine manorath paintings and others, like the astonishing ‘Mantubai’s Manorath of Sanjhi’, teeming as it is with devotees and mannequins, importing the figures of the long-gone Goverdhanlal-ji and his son standing in as priests, featuring a great floral sanjhi decoration on a platform, and affording views of two large pichhwais hanging at the back. The painting, dated 1915, has a long inscription, too. It reads: “Chitrakar Champalal Hiralal, Samvat 1972 (1915 CE). On the dark half of the month of Aso on Wednesday, a manorath was performed on the platform of the shrine of Navneetpriya-ji. This was offered by Mantubai, wife of Seth Chatrubhuj Morarji.” We do not need much more information; do we?

Across time, one knows, devotees have nursed an innermost desire to be in close proximity to their ishta, to reach out to — and touch as it were — Him or Her to whom their devotion is directed. Whether this happens, or has ever happened, in real life is hard to know, but one sees this happening so many times in the world of art. The evidence of paintings in this regard is rich and incontrovertible: ever so often, we see a ruler standing with folded hands in front of his deity — not a sculpted or painted image of the deity, but the deity in person — seeking blessings or receiving them. Some wonderful paintings have come down: a Maharana of Mewar in the presence of Eklingji; a Wodeyar ruler of Mysore bowing before Krishna; a prince of Mankot gazing at Vishnu and his divine consort; a sovereign of Mandi kneeling before Shiva. There is something quite moving about these images even if these were commissioned by the patron, inspired as he might have been by a sudden urge to enter a higher realm, or by an auspicious dream, perhaps.

Manorath with devotee family. By Ambalal Khemraj; ca. 1920. Anil Relia Collection

In many ways, the manorath paintings from Nathdwara of which we speak belong to this very category of art which brings the devotee and deity together. Generally speaking, one associates with Nathdwara — that great centre of pilgrimage, not far from Udaipur, where an image of young Krishna is installed and worshipped as Shrinathji — with pichhwais, those large painted textiles that are meant to form, as the word indicates, a backdrop for the image of Krishna. Some extraordinary pichhwais are known to have been painted by devoted groups of artists in the 18th and 19th centuries, showing, in the centre, not only the image of Krishna in the miraculous act of holding aloft the mount Govardhana to save his kinsmen from the wrath of rain-god Indra, but also a bewildering range of rituals, festivals, gatherings, and wondrous deeds. Figures associated with Krishna — his parents, playmates and maidens who doted upon him — fill spaces, as do priests and attendants and, on occasion, chosen devotees. These gloriously coloured and designed hangings, steeped sometimes in deep feeling, also had their counterparts in paintings on paper — superb examples have survived — which featured not only Krishna as Shrinathji, but in his other manifestations like Navnitapriya, Dwarkadheesh, Gokulnath, Mathuresh, among others. The production of these in the bylanes of Nathdwara, where painter after painter kept poring over sheets of paper pasted on wooden tablets, turned, over time, into a whole, buzzing industry.

Within these two categories it is possible to see incorporated a sub-category perhaps: manorath paintings. In their essence, they are not different from pichhwais and paintings on paper, but one can regard them as a sub-category because their orientation, their focus, is somewhat different. Like others, they too celebrate Krishna, but they also celebrate, or at least record, at the same time a temporal event: a large donation, a performed pilgrimage, a specially designed observance. When the distinguished tilakayat — ruling chief so to speak of the Nathdwara establishment — Goverdhanlal-ji gets a pichhwai specially painted to commemorate his having successfully brought five different icons of the sect together at Nathdwara for an occasion; or when the Maharana of Mewar, likewise, gets a painting made to record his visit to the great shrine for performing a puja, the works are recording the fulfilment of a manorath.

However, the term as it is being increasingly used now, refers to ‘popular’ paintings commissioned by sub-royal or sub-prelate patrons for recording their presence, and that of their kinsmen, at Nathdwara in homage to their ishta: Krishna as installed there. The patron might be a rich Seth, a trader, a moneylender, a landlord — there were significant numbers of them in Rajasthan and Gujarat — and one finds them standing there, next to, or facing, a pichhwai with the image of Krishna, hands reverently folded, devotion writ large on eager faces. Of this kind, more and more paintings began to be made from the early years of the 20th century with yet another significant change coming in. Even though there were many painters around who were gifted portraitists, the painted faces of the patron/devotees began — now that photography had established itself in India and entered nearly every mind — to be replaced by faces cut out, excerpted, from hastily taken photographs showing frontal views. The devotees can be seen flanking the deity but, at times, looking out of the work at us, or one another, rather than the object of their adoration. This is the time that one starts reading about ‘mixed-media’ paintings, ‘cut-and-pasted gelatin silver prints and opaque watercolours’ occupying the same spaces, and nearly every work inscribed with the name/signature of the person/s who painted it. Signs of our times? The triumph of commerce?

Not every image works but there is fascination in all this. There are routine manorath paintings and others, like the astonishing ‘Mantubai’s Manorath of Sanjhi’, teeming as it is with devotees and mannequins, importing the figures of the long-gone Goverdhanlal-ji and his son standing in as priests, featuring a great floral sanjhi decoration on a platform, and affording views of two large pichhwais hanging at the back. The painting, dated 1915, has a long inscription, too. It reads: “Chitrakar Champalal Hiralal, Samvat 1972 (1915 CE). On the dark half of the month of Aso on Wednesday, a manorath was performed on the platform of the shrine of Navneetpriya-ji. This was offered by Mantubai, wife of Seth Chatrubhuj Morarji.” We do not need much more information; do we?

Isabella Nardi from Naples has made a considered, detailed study of manorath paintings in the collection of the distinguished publisher and connoisseur of Ahmedabad, Anil Relia. The title of her work? Portraits of Devotion.

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